The risk of stroke with neck manipulation has been addressed on SBM before by Dr. Crislip, by myself, by chiropractor Samuel Homola, and by Jann Bellamy. I have listed the links at the end of this article for the convenience of interested readers. Recent studies merit a followup.

A case report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine July 17, 2012, describes a 37 year old nurse who had a history of chronic neck pain. She had been getting neck manipulations from her chiropractor once a month for 12-15 years! (One can only conclude that the manipulations had not accomplished much.) She developed a new symptom (pain when turning her head up and to the right), and at her 4th visit in a week, during neck manipulation, she heard a loud pop and immediately had the sensation that the room was spinning. She developed visual disturbances, vomited, and had a loss of balance, persistently falling to the left. The chiropractor failed to recognize her symptoms as signs of a stroke. Instead of rushing her to the ER, he performed an “occipital adjustment” in an attempt to relieve her symptoms. She went to the ER 1.5 hours after the event and was found to have a cervical artery dissection. She was discharged from the hospital after 48 hours but has residual symptoms. The authors’ conclusion:

Although incidence of cervical artery dissection precipitated by chiropractic neck manipulation is unknown, it is an important risk. Given that risk, physical therapy exercises may be a safer option than spinal manipulation for patients with neck pain.